Perfect Week for Men's Tennis

Freshman Georgy Batrakov had a perfect 6-0 record this week (Photo by Jaren Wilkey/BYU Photo)

PROVO -- The No. 65 BYU men's tennis team reached its goal of a 3-0 week after a win against Santa Clara and an upset of No. 48 Denver Friday. The Cougars remain undefeated at home and improve their overall record to 7-2.

"To win against a quality team like Santa Clara and then follow it up with a win over a team like Denver, which is highly ranked and has a lot of wins, I couldn't ask for anything more," BYU coach Brad Pearce said.

The match against Santa Clara began with a commanding doubles performance by the Cougars. BYU easily snagged wins on courts one through three and earned the first point of the match.

Freshman Georgy Batrakov secured the first singles win for the team at the No. 4 position. His victory was shortly followed with another by junior Cassidy Mears to put the Cougars up 3-0. After going down a set on court one, Evan Urbina came back to take the second and third and clinch the match for BYU.

Roman Warias also found himself behind after the first set. The freshman was able to mount a comeback and add to the team’s total. Straight-set wins by Daniel Hwang and Travis Fillmore finished the sweep.

Doubles against Denver started with a win by BYU at the No. 2 position. Batrakov and A.J. Young slipped by their opponents to give the Cougars’ their second doubles point of the day.

Singles play got off to a rough start for BYU with Warias, Urbina and Thomas Shubert falling in straight sets. The Pioneers needed only one more win with three matches remaining to claim the victory.

Batrakov won the first set in a 10-12 tiebreak before dropping the second 6-1. The freshman battled through cramps and fatigue to win the match and keep BYU’s hopes alive.

"Georgy was the key to keeping us in the match," Pearce said. "Georgy gave our No. 5 and No. 6 players the opportunity to do what they did for us in winning."

Mears tied the score at 3-3 with a win at the No. 5 position, and the match came down to Hwang on court six. The sophomore easily won the first set 6-1. The second set went back-and-forth until he finally pulled away to make the final score 6-3 and clinch the win for BYU.

"It was simply heart today," Pearce said. "That win is going to be a huge boost for us the rest of the season."

The team will travel to Calif. next week to take on Stanford and Pacific. The Stanford and Pacific matches were scheduled for earlier this season but were rescheduled because of rain.